


The Other Side of the Story

by shadesfalcon



Series: Stockholm Syndrome [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Companion Piece, F/M, Minor Violence, Self-Hatred, Swearing, Timestamp, goes with my "To Each His Own"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 16:06:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2587568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadesfalcon/pseuds/shadesfalcon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was prompted to show Natalia's transference in To Each His Own, Chapter Two from her point of view. Which is exactly what this is. It's really not going to make a lot of sense without having read the chapter in question, first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Side of the Story

Time is impossible. Regardless of its existence as a social necessity, it defies the laws of any understanding there is about people themselves. Natalia Romanova watched the only person she knew take an arrow through the ascending aorta in a moment that extended for a thousand years. At the same time, she blinked and missed it.

***

There was a ringing in her ears. Like that time they’d deafened her with the explosion that someone had blown too early. It had taken surgery and an alteration to the serum to get her hearing back. Someone had been executed for that one.

Stupid high pitched ringing noise that meant something important. Was she in trouble? Had she pushed a trigger too early? Turned the wrong way? That didn’t sound right. She couldn’t put together any pieces that had to do with an explosion.

Was it an attack? Was she under attack?

That seemed closer to right. There had definitely been an attack. Flashes of a man on a rooftop, dressed like the shadows and quick as them, too. Down through the window and across the glass-littered floor. Columns. Structural supports. The sound of a basement door opening. A drawn bow.

Her mind rejected the next moment and the series of images started over, the long drawn out ringing in her ears still drawing on.

It was the burn in her lungs that finally told her the noise was her own scream.

“Hey! Deep breath!” It was a command with strange timing, and stranger consequences. She’d been just about to breathe in as it was, and the timing of his order coincided with the action perfectly. Like she’d obeyed.

Had she?

Dark figure on the roof. Falling down with the glass. Sharp impact that turned into a roll, turned into a quick four steps to cover. Basement door. Taunt bow. Nothing?

She was curled up on the floor. Who had put her there? The beginning of a reflexive surge to her feet twitched in her mind, but she cut it off when she realized it might have been an order. Maybe an order had put her there.

She fished for the last few seconds again.

Dark figure. Falling glass. Impact, roll, hide. Door. Draw. Static. Figure glass hide door bow static.

Had she been injured? Maybe so horrendously injured that everything had stopped working and she couldn’t think right anymore. That would explain everything from the fritzy memory to the pain running up and down in her body. Maybe someone had injured her.

Maybe it had been the dark figure on the roof. His eyes had pierced her. He’d flipped over. They’d fallen and glass hit the floor in little patterns. Knee to hip and hand to elbow, rolling up to run for cover. Two gunshots, each from her left, and the sounds of shuffling feet from her right. Eight steps to her first target. Basement door opening behind her. Drawn bow with drawn breath.

“She’s the Black Widow?” That was her name. Someone here knew her. If she’d been injured they’d get her back to…someone. There was someone she was going back to. Someone she belonged to.

No name came to mind. That didn’t worry her, though she thought maybe it should. No face came to mind. That _was_ a worry.

“Looks like it.”

“You gonna shoot her, or am I?”

_Don’t shoot me. I’m a little girl hiding under something bigger than myself and your violence will stain you red with my blood._

No.

_Don’t shoot me. I’m a little girl wrapped in fire that burns bigger than yourself and my violence will stain you red with your blood._

She couldn’t remember his face, but she was sure she belonged to someone. She wrapped what was left of her mind around that fact. Someone out there owned her. She only had to find him. Only had to let him wrap around her skin.

The voices were arguing about something, but she’d missed what it was. She’d spent the energy of those moments on calling herself owned.

Those last words had been a threat, hadn’t they? She might not know where she was, but she knew what to do with a threat.

Dark figure, bright eyes, long fall, rough landing, eight steps, sixteen men, opened door, drawn bow.

She surged upward and flung away the gun her hands were automatically drawn to. But as she threw it across the room she felt the weight of the timing being wrong. Not in her disarming move, but in the way she held herself in the moment. In the room.

Something very bad had happened in this room?

She looked back at the man who was staring at her in shock, and apologized. Deep apologies. One language and then another, because she had to make sure that everyone knew how sorry she was. Because every language’s apology meant something a little different and she didn’t want to _miss_ any of the meanings. Couldn’t afford to miss any of the meanings.

“Look at me.”

She’d obeyed that voice before. Her body did it again. And then there were the piercing eyes. Quick fall. Rolled landing. Take cover. Opened door. Drawn bow.

Piercing eyes. Quick fall. Rolled-piercing eyes. Quick f--piercing eyes. Piercing eyes.

_Stop looking at me._

Her words switched from apologies to a begged plea. One of the only pleas He allowed her to make. He?

Piercing eyes.

Command me command me command me command me.

“Stop that. Be quiet.”

She wasn’t even allowed to plea for that anymore. She must be in trouble. She must have failed, and that was why she was hurt and confused. Failure meant she was going to suffer. The kind of suffering that deprived her of light and warmth and _him_. Even though it must be a relief to get away from those _eyes._ Had they always pierced so deep?

“Why did you attack Retzker just now? The man behind you.”

She’d attacked someone? No, she’d thrown a gun across the room. If she’d attacked him, he’d be dead. And, seeing the look on His face right now, she offered thanks to all the gods she knew that she hadn’t attack him at all.

But she had to answer the question, so she skirted it. “I thought he was threatening you. I didn’t know it was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” English, because that was what he’d asked in, but then she fell back into the apology. Fuck, she was stuck again.

He seemed upset, and she braced for when that fury would fly at her. He was talking on the com, not at her, but it was all a matter of time.

So many people in the room, he’d wait until they were alone. Sixteen people in the room, actually. The cold sheen of concrete against her left shoulder. The clatter of a wooden door as it was roughly kicked open. A soft breath that matched the soft whisper of a tightening string.

What had the point of these images been again?

“Hey,” he called down to her softly, and suddenly his eyes were looking down at her with alarming intensity. She clutched his hand against her face before she could stop herself and that had earned her more punishment later. He untangled her grip gently, rather than striking her outright. “Do you know where they took the kids? We were here to get them, so if you could help with that…”

A task.

“The girls are being moved to the pier. Malak had it done this morning, to prepare for you. They’re being shipped downstream first thing tomorrow.” Why do these memories come back with ease when others do not?

“Can you take us there?

“Yes.” Oh. Memories. That had been the point of the images. She had been trying to remember something. She tried to filter through to what it had been, or at least why she had been trying to remember it.

“Well?”

Shit, she’d zoned out in the middle of his orders. Just standing there like her only concern in the world was herself.

“It’ll be fastest across the rooftops. Can you keep up?”

“Obviously not in this condition.”

Bleeding leg. Superficial enough, but toward muscle. Two inch gash. Hooked belay that told her he was going over and gave her time to get her fingers in his belt. Long fall to a—No!

She pushed the images away, carefully wiped out each one. She wouldn’t let them get her in even more trouble. If they were important, if she’d needed to remember, then he would tell her that later. Tell her with burns and blood and darkness so she’d never forget again. For now, they were already gone.

He tossed her a tracker.

“Lead them to the girls?” she confirmed.

“Go, and it’ll give them the location. They’ll take over from there. Once they engage, break off and come back here.”

He was pulling her off the mission. Pulling her off the fight and back here, where they’d be alone. To punish her, rather than let her be useful.

She was always such a burden, even though she’d been created to be anything but. Why did he put up with her? She longed to lick her gratitude into the soft of his thighs.

Maybe after he’d made her scream enough to wash out her failures of the day.

She was waiting again, this time on purpose, for his dismissal.

“Hey!” shouted the man she’d been staring at before. “This is not when we waste time, little girl. This is when we move.”

As if she gave a fuck what he wanted her to do.

“What he said.” And that was an order from the man she’d one day follow into death. She moved, across the room and out the door, leaving awe in her wake.

***

The actual journey there wasn’t very eventful. She dawdled along the rooftops, letting the team he’d sent after her catch up. Stepping from night shadow, flashing across areas of light, and the submerging back into the dark. When she arrived at the correct dock, she toured around it a bit. In the open, this time. Since the men working here knew her. An hour ago, she’d been protecting them.

But her whims changed with his, so they were being cut off whether they knew it or not.

Maybe, if she were smarter, she’d see his moves coming. Maybe, one day, she be useful to him in strategy, not just like this. Maybe she’d learn to understand his moves before he made them.

She laid the tracker down on a table in the center of the room, where they’d be sure to see it, and then disappeared back the way she’d come.

She moved faster this time, without the weight of a team behind her, and risked the lower ground of the streets. The rooftops would have meant taking a long way around, and she was eager to get back to him.

It might have been a poor choice, because she almost ran right into one of the local security officers. Would have had to stumble around answers about tight black clothes with Kevlar-coated bullets in the pockets. Would have had to snap a neck and leave a trail.

She shuffled to the side and breezed past. She always got sloppy when she was waiting to be punished.

***

When she arrived back at the warehouse, he was alone and seated on a wooden crate. He was obviously talking to someone over his com, which was none of her business. She quietly paid it only half of her attention, waiting for him.

“Holy fuck!” he swore suddenly, and she jumped. He hated it when she startled him.

“I led your team to the girls.”

“Yeah. I heard. I’ve still got a radio on. I just didn’t know you were back yet. How are you back so quickly? Did you purposefully slow down on the way there?”

Of course she was supposed to have gone more quickly. His orders were always supposed to be obeyed quickly.

“I’m sorry. I thought you wanted me to let them keep up.” _Excuse._

“You’re not in trouble, Natalia.” _Her name._ “I just didn’t understand. And that was a perfectly acceptable explanation, so I do now.

She did something right, at least. Maybe more than one something. Praise isn’t handed out by him that casually. Maybe she didn’t fuck up as much as she’d thought. Maybe she was only in a little bit a trouble. Maybe none. She’d just assumed it had been her fault she was injured. Maybe it wasn’t.

She looked down at the floor to hide hope.

“So, you and I are about to head back to an outlying base. But I thought we should take a moment to lay down some ground rules. Ok?”

“Yes, sir.”

“First and foremost, all the people stationed there at the base are my allies. Some of them are my friends. If you only remember one thing, it had better be this one: don’t hurt anyone at the base. Unless I directly tell you to. Without room for interpretation. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” She’d have to be careful, but it wouldn’t be impossible. Everyone knew to leave her alone.

“The second one goes along with the first one. I have superiors. They’re going to be giving me orders. They might even be yelling at me. You need to realize that they’re not a threat. There will be trouble if you disarm someone like Director Fury the way you disarmed Retzker.” She didn’t know who Director Fury was, but she knew better than to out-right attack his superiors. He’d reminded her more than enough that his take-over of the organization was to be slow and subtle.

“Third, you’re not to leave the base without permission. I think the goal is to get you back on missions sometime in the future, but it’s going to be a while.” She was grounded from missions? Her injury must have been more severe than she’d thought. Though she hadn’t noticed anything amiss on her way to the docks.

“Finally, and this one is a little more difficult, I want you to ask me if you don’t understand something. I’m not going to get mad at you if you ask a question about something on the base. If you don’t know something, then you don’t know it. Just ask. I _will_ get angry if you could have gotten help, and don’t. It’s an unnecessary risk.”

The whole little speech was bullshit, but she nodded her head anyway.

“So how about you? Anything you want to say?”

There it was. She let her memory ghost over—falling glass? What came next? What was after falling glass?

No, that was something else.

“I’m sorry I disarmed Retzker.” She tried to go in order. What had been next?

Her hesitation. Both of them. And also, her stupid failure to notice that he was injured. “I’m sorry I didn’t go straight to get the girls when you asked where they were. I’m sorry for forgetting you were injured. I’m sorry I delayed on the way to the docks.”

She’d snuck up behind him, and he _hated_ that. “I’m sorry I startled you. I’m sorry I was being a burden to you.”

She almost stopped there, but the guilt of a hidden offense would hurt worse than the punishment. She’d give in, eventually, and everything would be so much worse. “Also, halfway back, I almost encountered the local security force. I hadn’t been paying attention as much as I should have and nearly had to engage. I’m sorry for that.”

“Nearly had to engage?” She scrambled for details, but he put his hands up. “No, I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you’re making it sound. I doubt there’s anyone on the local force who would notice you walking down the street in broad daylight. Not if you didn’t want them to.”

She hadn’t meant to lie.

“You’re right, of course. I’m sorry I was misleading.”

He put his hands over his face, and she wilted. “I’m really bad at this,” he sighed. “And, I swear, if you apologize for that, I might just lose my shit.” He stood then, absentmindedly tangling his fingers in her hair.

Maybe he wasn’t mad at her. Maybe he was mad at something else. After all, he’d just praised her capabilities a moment ago. Twice.

“Come on. Let’s just get you back to a secure environment.”

She stood gracefully, showing off a little, and allowed herself a small smile when his eyes lingered on her movement. Pride in his eyes.

Ok, so not mad at her after all.


End file.
